With Team Gymnastics Master Class, Simone Biles Returns to Set Gold Standard

After her well-documented disappointment in Tokyo, the three-time Olympian looked like her old, joyful self while sealing the U.S.’s triumph in Paris.

Simone Biles captured her fifth Olympic gold medal with Team USA's win Tuesday. / Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

PARIS — At the very end, every other gymnast in the team competition was done for the evening, and all Simone Biles really had to do was show up. What a lovely and well-deserved treat this was. Three years after her mind fell through a trapdoor in Tokyo, taking years of hard work with it, Biles got to do what everybody expected her to do three years ago. She performed with joy on her face, peace in her head, and a gold medal on its way toward her neck.

Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey had built up such a large lead that Biles said afterward: “I knew as long as I landed on my feet on all my passes, we’re gonna be good.”

The Americans won by a lot, which is not the same as winning easily. Biles had already authored one of the great comeback stories in sports, moving past what plagued her in Tokyo to dominate her sport again. But the problem with demons is that no matter how deep you bury them, they never really die. You never know when you might have to battle them again.

Even if the routines are the same, the Olympics are different. This is true for every gymnast, but it was especially true for Biles. She arrived in Paris as the greatest gymnast in history, but that was true when she got to Tokyo, too. She made it through qualifying at Bercy Arena despite pain in her left calf. But now there would be a medal on the line.

“I started off with therapy this morning,” Biles said Tuesday night, and she did not mean therapy for her calf. “So that was super exciting. I told her I was feeling calm and ready.”

Now that Biles got through it, let’s think about all the reasons she might not have. Biles is such an extraordinary athlete, and her struggle in Tokyo was so well-documented, that she knew the public would assume any failure was mental. If she did fail, she would not just cost herself gold; her four teammates were counting on her, and two of them, Chiles and Hezly Rivera, had never won Olympic gold.

Then there was the first rotation: the vault, which is where her Tokyo nightmare began.

As Biles ran toward the vault, she was not running away from anything. She owned what happened in Tokyo from the moment it started. She was well aware it could happen again. So were her teammates. Thinking about it at all seems like an invitation for disaster, but it’s important to remember that what happened in Tokyo took her by surprise. Biles would not let herself be surprised again.

“After I finished vault, I was relieved,” she said. “I was like, ‘Whoo! At least no flashbacks or anything.’”

She wasn’t the only one.

“That’s definitely what I was thinking,” said Chiles, who jumped when Biles landed. “I was like, ‘Hallelujah! No flashbacks. O.K., all she needs to do is just do her normal.’ So me jumping up and down was just like a relief. And from there on, she’s the greatest of all greats.”

Biles’s next thought: “Ooh yeah, definitely, we’re gonna do this.”

She and Chiles and Lee and Carey took the suspense out of the rest of the evening (Rivera did not compete in the final.). When Biles struggled in Tokyo, Lee was the beneficiary, winning the all-around gold that everybody had earmarked for Biles. For all of the patriotism of the Olympics, athletes from the same country do not always get along, because there is only so much fame and so many endorsement dollars to go around. But Biles said this year’s gymnasts are exceptionally close.

“Last night, we were all having a little powwow with three of us in the room,” Biles said, “Just talking about our age, what we’re going through, how hard the Olympics is, and all of that stuff. So if I can be a voice or I can be an ear, then that’s what I’m going to be … once we’re really close and tight knit outside, then you see what you saw tonight.”

We saw dominance, we saw relief, and we saw the best of all time find the best version of herself.

So welcome back to the Olympics, Simone Biles. You have earned thousands of compliments over the years, but put this one on top of the pile: It was like you never left.